


Real Friendship

by mithrel



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Alcohol, Episode Related, Episode Tag, Episode: s03e18 Love Kills, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-11
Updated: 2014-09-11
Packaged: 2018-02-17 01:01:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2291192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mithrel/pseuds/mithrel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim reacts uncharacteristically after losing Lila, and Sandburg is left to deal with the fallout.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Real Friendship

**Author's Note:**

> "You can always tell a real friend: when you’ve made a fool of yourself he doesn’t feel you’ve done a permanent job." Laurence J. Peter.

Blair walked into the loft and was immediately hit with a wash of alcohol fumes. He stepped back, coughing, then took a closer look.

Jim was on the couch, a beer bottle in his hand, several more scattered on the table and floor around him. He gave a morose sort of wave. “Hey, Chief.”

“Jim?” Blair hurried over to him. “Oh _man,_ how many have you had?!” He took the bottle from Jim’s unresisting fingers and squinted at him.

“Too many,” Jim muttered. “Not enough. Doesn’ help. She’ss sstill dead.”

So that was what this was about. Lila. Jim had said she might have been the one, but…

“She wass gettin’ out, Chief!” Jim slurred at him, waving his hand, still in the shape of the bottle, as if he didn’t realize he was no longer holding it. “Gettin’ out an’ goin’ straight an’ now she’ss dead an’ I couldn’ protect her!”

Ouch. Of course Jim’s protective instincts would be giving him hell. He was Sentinel of the Great City, and it ate at him whenever he wasn’t able to protect someone. The fact that it was someone he loved just made it worse.

“There’s only one of me, Chief,” Jim said, sounding slightly more sober. “One of me for two million people. I can’ do it alone.”

Blair’s chest suddenly hurt. He dropped to his knees before the couch. “You’re not alone. You’ve got Simon, and Rafe and Brown. And…” he hesitated a moment, before deciding, hell, it was the truth, so why not say it? “And you’ve got me.”

Jim gave him a sodden smile. “I know, Chief.” One hand came out and grasped his shoulder, then he leaned back.

Blair went to the kitchen and got a glass of water, handing it to Jim. “Drink that, you’ll need it.”

As Jim emptied the glass, Blair cleaned up the beer bottles as quickly as he could. Jim needed to sleep it off, but in his current condition Blair doubted he could make it up the stairs.

He went upstairs himself and grabbed a pillow and blanket from Jim’s bed.

He knelt on the floor again to remove Jim’s boots. Jim’s hand came down, carding through his hair, massaging his scalp, and Blair looked up, repressing a shiver, before turning back to what he was doing.

“OK, big guy,” he said, standing up and hoisting Jim’s legs onto the couch. “You need to sleep it off.”

“’M not tired,” Jim protested, as Blair tucked the pillow under his head.

“Sleep anyway,” he said, spreading the blanket over him.

As he turned away, Jim's hand grabbed his wrist. He turned back, surprised.

"Don' go."

Blair swallowed. Jim was drunk, he didn't know what he was saying. "Jim, you need to sleep. I'll be right over there," he motioned to his bedroom.

"Can't sleep," Jim mumbled, so softly Blair almost couldn't hear him. "'Fraid if I sleep, you'll disappear."

There was that twisting in his chest again. Must have been the Thai food he had for lunch. Yeah, that was it. "I'm not gonna disappear, man. You're stuck with me."

Jim smiled, but still didn't let go of his wrist. Blair sighed.

"If I stay with you until you fall asleep, will that be enough?"

Jim nodded. Blair tugged at his arm. "I need to go get a chair."

Jim let go of him reluctantly, his fingers gliding down his arm, and Blair had to repress another shiver.

He plopped a chair down next to the arm of the couch, and Jim took hold of his hand this time, turning on his side and sighing. Blair stayed frozen for a long time, not daring to break the spell. He was afraid Jim would hear the thoughts going wildly through his mind, but he knew better than anyone that Sentinels didn’t have that power, and even if he had, Jim was in no position to use it.

In ten minutes or so, Jim began snoring. He remained there for another ten minutes (to make sure Jim was really asleep, he told himself), then slowly withdrew his hand and got up from the chair. He filled the water glass again, and set an open container of aspirin on the table, then went to bed himself.

He didn’t fall asleep for a long time, and when he did it was fitfully, alert for any noise from the living room.

***

Jim groaned the moment he regained consciousness, his head pounding, his mouth dry and his bladder full. He managed to collect his thoughts enough to dial down his pain, wondering what happened. It felt like he had a hangover, but to have a hangover he would have to have been drunk. He _never_ got drunk since his senses came online, to avoid just this kind of situation, the hangovers somehow doubled in intensity.

He opened his eyes and winced at the light, even though the blinds were closed on the balcony window, dialing down sight too.

“Jim? You awake?”

Sandburg was hovering over him, thankfully whispering. Jim thought he managed a nod. Sandburg helped him sit up and pressed the smooth curve of a glass into his palm.

Jim gulped the water gratefully, as he heard a rattling sound and Sandburg handed him a couple aspirin. He took them, then got up, groaning.

“Be right back.”

He felt a little better after he went to the bathroom and splashed his face with water, but everything was still too loud, too bright, and too fogged-over.

When he came back out into the living room, Sandburg turned from where he was doing arcane things to a mug. “This tea should help with the hangover.”

Great, that’s all he needed: one of Sandburg’s new-age “natural” remedies. “I thought that’s what the aspirin was for.”

Sandburg shot him a wounded look. “I swear this will help, Jim. If it doesn’t, I’ll never make you try anything ever again.”

He raised a brow skeptically. “Ever?”

“Alright, at least until the end of the month,” Sandburg amended.

He couldn’t help but crack a smile. “OK, Chief, gimme the sludge.”

Sandburg handed him the tea, and Jim sipped it cautiously. It wasn’t actually that bad, tasting more like mint than anything, but he wasn’t about to let Sandburg know that. He grimaced for form’s sake and set down the cup.

The smell of melting butter hit his nose, and he looked warily over to the stove. “What now, Chief?”

“Scrambled eggs.”

Jim’s stomach turned over. “No thanks.”

“Come on, the grease will help with the hangover.”

“And how do you know that? I thought you were into health food.”

Sandburg turned briefly to glare at him. “I _have_ been in college for the past decade or so. Several of my roommates were partiers and I got stuck nursing them back to health.”

Jim subsided, drinking the tea, trying to recall why he’d gotten drunk in the first place–not that it took much thinking. But he was worried by the fact that he couldn’t remember anything that happened the previous night.

He was brought out of his thoughts by a plate being set in front of him. He sniffed cautiously. Scrambled eggs, as Sandburg had said–but plain, with no veggies or other additions. He took a bite and realized he was actually hungry.

Sandburg sat down across from him and they ate in silence. Jim finished his first plate and went for seconds, wondering how to bring up what he’d done–or not done–last night.

“I guess you’re the one who put me to bed, huh?” he finally said. Obvious, but he had to start somewhere.

“Who else?” Sandburg said, putting his fork down. “Jim, man, what the hell were you thinking, getting drunk like that?”

Jim shrugged, focusing on his plate. “Just tell me I didn’t do anything to embarrass myself.”

“No, you didn’t do anything. And be glad I’m enough of a friend to realize when you feel lousy and not lie about you streaking down the hallway.”

Jim snorted. “Like I’d believe that anyway.”

Sandburg looked like he wanted to say something else, though. He opened his mouth and closed it several times, but only fragmented half-syllables came out.

“Spit it out, Chief,” Jim said impatiently.

“You were a little…” Sandburg hesitated, then finally mumbled “Clingy.”

“ _Clingy?_ ” Jim repeated incredulously.

“Yeah. I mean…first you were depressed about Lila, which, I get it, _totally_ understandable, then you were acting like you were a failure, which, you’re not, and _ask_ for people to back you up once in awhile, and then…”

Jim stared at Sandburg as he stopped, a flush crossing his face. “And then?” he prompted, when it looked like all he was going to do was sit there and blush.

“And…a-and then I tried to get you to sleep it off, and you…well…”

“I _what?_ ”

“You didn’t want me to leave!”

Jim took a moment to digest that, then buried his face in his hands, groaning. Of all the _idiotic_ things to come out with when he was drunk off his ass…

“So what did you do?” he asked, muffled, still not looking at Sandburg.

“I took a chair and sat next to you until you fell asleep.”

Jim did look up at that, because that was Sandburg’s “I’m-uncomfortable-with-this-topic” voice, and, yeah, he’s looking shifty. Jim decided he didn’t want to know.

“But Jim, I meant what I said last night, you’re stuck with me, I’m like one of those string paddle-balls, you can push me away but I’ll come bouncing back, and _wow_ I should really stop talking now!”

So now they were both embarrassed. Great.

“So, what now?”

Sandburg shrugged. “I’ll do whatever you need, man, talk, or marathon bad movies or just sit and do nothing, but I _don’t_ want you resorting to maladaptive coping mechanisms!”

Jim rubbed the bridge of his nose, where a shadow of the headache still lingered. “I think I can definitely say I’m not going to do that again anytime soon.”

“Oh. Well. Good.”

“I think there’s a game on,” Jim said into the awkward silence.

“Great!” Sandburg bounced over to the couch, flipping through the channels til he found a Sonics game, while Jim dug out some chips, a bottle of soda for Sandburg, and a glass of water for himself, since he was still dehydrated.

And if, when he sat down, Jim ended up pressed a little closer to Sandburg than normal, well, he was still hung over, and he didn’t think Blair would notice.


End file.
